Kevin McCarthy

There seems to be a problem with military absentee votes in Fairfax, Virginia. From A Soldier's Perspective:

The Fairfax County Registrar—and possibly other Registrars in Virginia—is rejecting most Federal Write-in Absentee Ballots (FWAB) cast by our men and women in uniform.

The FWAB is a federally mandated write-in ballot that allows military servicemembers and their dependents to cast an absentee ballot when they have not received a ballot before the election. It is a safety net that allows a servicemember to vote even if the mail truck hasn't reached his or her remote base in Iraq or Afghanistan in time to cast a regular absentee ballot.

I have talked to several people involved in this process. They are not in fact, yet, rejecting the absentee ballots. They have not been counted and are picking a procedure for doing it. And the current procedure would result in rejecting military absentees.

The basic idea is that if military voters do not get their absentee ballots in time, they can fill out a "Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot" that all election officials are required by federal law to accept. Virgina's instructions are here. The ballot is here.

The position of the Fairfax Registrar is that the sealed (outside) envelope has to be witnessed. The thing is that there is no location to witness, and the instructions are unclear.

Furthermore, this is in violation of the US law, which pre-empts in this case. ASP continues:

Federal law does not allow this type of disparate treatment of servicemembers. The Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act (UOCAVA), 42 U.S.C. § 1973ff-2, requires states to process FWABs "in the manner provided by law for absentee ballots in the State involved." (emphasis added). In other words, the FWAB must be treated like any other absentee ballot under state law and may not be subject to more restrictive requirements. Yet that is precisely what is being done here.

No other kind of absentee ballots are required to be witnessed in Virginia. So the county registrar is improperly implementing federal law and "suppressing" the military vote.

Two final points:

First, I look forward to the squealing from the lefty groups. Somehow, I predict silence.

Second, there was a solution to these problems proposed earlier. Rep. Kevin McCarthy introduced HR 5673 to expedite the delivery of military absentee ballots. The unions opposed. Here was the operative bit, where they complain about the private sector:

NAPUS is deeply concerned about HR 5673, particularly the provision that sanctions private contractor conveyance of overseas and military ballots.

When the unions opposed the measure, all actions stopped in the House. Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Robert Brady (also chairman of that pristine Philadelphia Democratic Party, whose Secretary has been convicted multiple times of violating election laws) didn't seem to care about preserving voting rights. Somehow, putting unions ahead of voting rights will be a pattern in the Democratic House.

On Thursday, I participated in a blogger conference with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) and Mayor Lou Barletta. organized via the NRCC's Young Guns program.

Barletta answered a lot of questions about his race and the district. He indicated that his district appears opposed to the bailout, like most places in the country. In addition, Barletta's opponent, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) is actually the chairman of the House Subcommittee which was suppsosed to be overseeing the GSEs. Every time I hear more about this race, the more likely it appears that we are going to win. Go help out Lou Barletta and push this one over the top.

McCarthy then came on and discussed what was happening on the floor. Basically, he talked about the bailout and what the Young Guns will be doing. They will be travelling the country to about 20 targetted races and campaigning for those candidates.

It is really good to see a younger generation of leadership and taking responsibility for adding to our numbers. We hope to hear more about this over the next 6 weeks until the election.

I have written a bunch about the problems that our soldiers have voting. Currently, as it stands, House Democrats, urged on by the unions, are blocking a bill that would increase the likelihood of the votes of our soldiers actually counting.

Last week Bob Novak also wrote about this issue. Today there was a significant advance. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), the analog of the National Governors Association, endorsed Kevin McCarthy's Military Protection Voting Act of 2008, HR 5673.

None of the Democrats at NASS dared to vote no this, but House and Senate Democratic leaders refuse to bring this to a vote. This is a typical case of the Democrats putting their special interests ahead of the troops.

This was pushed by Chris Nelson, Secretary of State of North Dakota, and Sam Reed, Secretary of State of Washington.

In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require regulation. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on House Administraion Kevin Brady. The letter is a response to a debate about whether the House should allow members to use YouTube, first raised by Rep. Kevin McCarthy back in April. From that story:

The reason is simple enough: The Franking Commission frowns on official links to campaign-related Web sites, political parties, advocacy groups and "any site the primary purpose of which is the conduct of commerce."

Well, Capuano's proposal is a disaster. It creates a list of sites, maintained by the Committee on House Administration that members are allowed to post material. Except, those sites have a caveat:

To the maximum extent possible, official content should not be posted on a website or page where it may appear with commercial or political information or any other information not in compliance with the House's content guidelines.

Just to make it clear, these guidelines are apply to the content on the external site, not the House site. Would Larry Lessig call that "neanderthal"? This would, for example, not allow members to post information to Facebook, which has ads and, dare I say, political content.

House Republicans have the technologically serious response. Their response letter, attached, says:

Members may use technologies, websites, and services (paid or unpaid) too communicate with their consituents via text, video, or audio so long as the content posted by the Member complies with House rules and Franking Commission regulations. Members may use free communications and networking services so long as these services are available on the same terms and conditions as others.

Only the posted content must comply with House rules, not the whole external site.

Who gets technology? Either, as Capuano noted to the Post, ""To me, the Web is a necessary evil like cellphones," or House Democrats are trying to make it harder for the opposition to get their message out.